How the Rest of Zootopia lives
by pertelote345
Summary: A collection of short fics from the perspectives of Zootopia's side characters. Updated when I get an idea. Stories published in twos. 1) Francine, relationship counselor 2) Flash, speed demon
1. Chapter 1

How the Rest of the City Lives

 _Francine_

I leaned over to our resident bunny officer (a dangerous task, I didn't want to squish her) and whispered. "You know, if you don't bone him, I will."

Judy's ears shot straight up in surprise. "Wh- I have no idea what you're talking about!"

She said it way too fast. I rolled my eyes. "Look, I just saw you staring at his butt not two seconds ago. You clearly want that foxy rear and I really don't blame you." It was nice, with that long poofy tail bouncing all over the place... I wondered if I should really be helping this girl.

"I was just eager to get those copies!" She returned, "He just happened to be bent over the machine."

I groaned. This poor girl was _clueless_. "Look, one abused minority to another, this is getting out of hand. You need to live your life, and that includes not taking anyone's shit about who you want to bone."

The bunny's nose twitched in indignation. "Damn it, I don't want to bone hi- Wait." She tilted her head, confused. She eyed my three ton physique. "How are you an abused minority?"

I rolled my eyes. "You small folks don't get it I guess, sure I can bench press a truck made for a wolf, but if you think I'm not stuck behind a glass ceiling, you're blind."

Her ears twitched, uncertain (man those ears were _cute_ ). "Glass ceiling?" A look of horror crossed her face. "Wait, is this department _sexist_ on top of everything else?"

I shook my head. "Nah, it's not that. Remind me to introduce you to senior detective Dawood sometime... Or maybe not because that camel's gone Internal Affairs and she's scary as shit. The problem is that I'm an elephant."

Judy bit her lip. With those teeth of hers I was half afraid she would bite it off. "Uh... Okay, I know I've been small minded in the past, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I always imagined being really big and strong would help you with police work."

I sighed. "That's because you're looking at it from the wrong angle Hopps. Literally. It's like..." I tried to think of a good way to explain. Then it hit me. "Remember when you were chasing a perp through Little Rodentia? It's a lot like that, but all the time. You try to calm some poor lamb down and they think you're trying to scare information out of them. So eventually folks are like 'Well, Francine is big and intimidating, why not give Francine the problem cases?' and 'Wow, Francine can sure handle herself, why not let her charge in first to raid that crack den every, single, time?'"

I rubbed at my head. "Seriously, do you know how many times they've offered me a transfer to SWAT? I want to make detective some way, but so long as the higher-ups see me as some big scary thug there's not much chance of me advancing beyond being a grunt."

Judy looked genuinely sad. "I... I'm sorry, I had no idea. I-"

I held up a hand. "It's okay Hopps. I know you have the exact opposite problem so mine's hard to wrap your head around, but we're getting off topic. Like 90% of the department is rooting for you and Nick to get together and the rest can take a hike if you really like him."

I smirked, eyeing the fox collecting papers. "And you'd have to be blind not to." Damn that butt was fine...

She twitched. It was a hard twitch, not the usual bunny jitters. "I... I have to go grab some files. Be back in a flash okay?" And then the nervous bunny bolted over to the filing cabinet and started rooting through it like a mad woman.

Nick slid back to the table. "Hey there Fran... Is... Is Judy okay?"

She was currently half buried in a cabinet, her perfect little bunny butt with her cute cotton tail concealed only by her standard issue slacks.

I leaned over to Nick. "You know, if you don't bone her, I will."

 _Flash_

"Officers I can-

"SaveitFlashyouweregoing90milesanhourina45zone." Officer hops spurted.

"-explain!" I finished, nervously eyeing Officer Hopps and my old friend Nick. He'd always been pretty cool for a fast one, and he knew how to enunciate, so I could understand him better than most of the speedies.

But he just shook his head. "Flash you know you did wrong buddy. You need to come with us."

I blanched. It was over wasn't it. The guy who'd actually sat down and hung out with me when no other fastie would had come to crack down on me.

I felt a shiver roll down my spine. He was going to take me down to the station. Take away my _license_.

I felt the smooth seat of the car, the power locked inside it. I thought of watching fast ones roll their eyes at me. Telling me I was slow when I was practically running to get my work done every day. Not having a car... Not having that one place where I was the fastest?

That wasn't living. I narrowed my eyes. "Bye." That said, I slammed on the gas pedal so fast my foot was a blur.

And then, _hyperspace_.

I loved the feel of it, the purr of my engine as I careened down the street, the air whistling past and the scenery blurring as I felt the power, the _speed._ I zoomed through downtown, dodging cars left and right, burning rubber past them all. I felt my heart pounding. The adrenaline filling my veins. I was _made_ for this.

I smiled. I may have been a sloth, but they called me Flash for a reason. My family never understood my need for speed. The rest of my classmates shuffled through the hall and I _ran_. I studied for a driver's license day and night as soon as I was legal and I spent ages tuning up my car, increasing the responsiveness of the controls, making the engine hum with unbridled 10 cylinder power.

I grinned. It was all worth it. In a car I wasn't some stupid slowpoke the fast ones could mock. I was just as fast as them. Faster even. I'd met like minds among the fast ones. People who weren't afraid to put the pedal to the metal and just race through the-

"Flashareyoucrazypulloverrightnow!" Screamed the tiny rabbit flattened against my lap.

I blinked. "Judy, whe-"

The tiny police officer was practically vibrating, pressed into me by the g-forces and hastily slipped under my seatbelt. "DamnitFlashIhoppedinthewindow! 'tslowdownwe'regoingtocrash."

I grit my teeth, glaring down at her. She wanted to talk fast? I'd talk fast too. "JudyIneedthiseveryonethinksI'mawasteifspaceandasaracerI-"

I was cut off as we slammed into a cabbage cart and my beautiful baby car went into a roll.

#

"Well you'restillunderarrest,butthankyouforhuggingmewhenwecrashed." Judy, completely unharmed, eyed me from the hospital bedside. It was hard to hear her though the beeping of my heart monitor, but I nodded. The doctor had said I would be in the body cast for 6 months. Which was roughly how long I'd be clawcuffed to the gurney so it all worked out.

"My car?" I asked, weakly.

Judy winced. "I'msorry,thathingwastotaled."

I felt an ache inside me that no painkillers could wash away. My car. I'd worked so hard on her. No one thought a sloth like me could drive a beast like her. And now, she was gone. Along with my chances of ever getting behind the wheel again.

I started crying. I knew what I did was dangerous, but I never imagined this.

I felt a paw on my claw. Judy looked up at me, sad. "Forwhatit'sworthIknowwhatit'slike. Thatneedtoproveyourself? Toshoweveryonewhatyoucandonomatterthecost..."

She squeezed my claw, then her speech slowed. "Find a safe way, but don't give up."

That said, she slipped something in between my claws. Two tickets to the gokart speedway. Dated six months away.

I smiled and started to thank her... But she was already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Fru Fru_

People like to make up stories about being attacked in bathrooms, for a variety of reasons by a laundry list of dastardly villains.

You hear them all the time, stories about jealous exes, or drug addicts, or trans people... Few of them were particularly compelling, and I was pretty sure that last one was a ghost story born of prejudice.

In any case, I can understand why they started. You're pretty vulnerable while doing your business, or at least you feel that way. Still, I never gave the stories much thought until that time Derrick walked in on me.

Derrick was tall, even for a polar bear. He had a suit that was never up to the family's professional standards and a single missing digit from when he'd questioned my father too openly.

I'd never been particularly fond of him. Still, he was one of ours, so I barely batted an eye when he walked up to me at the sink.

I picked up another brush and eyed him through the mirror. "Yes?"

He leaned back against the wall with an easy smirk. "I've got a business proposition for you."

I daintily applied just the right quantity of blush. "We just had a meeting last night Derrick, if you didn't bring it up then you'll just have to wait for next week."

He shook his head. "No, no, no... I don't mean _family_ business. I just mean a way for you to build up some dough. You know, for that little secret account of yours?"

I rolled my eyes, he was seriously leading with a threat? I thought we taught our men better than that. "Derrick, Daddy knows all about my 'side' account. The money is clean and is for Little Judy's college fund." There was no way my child was going to grow up in the family business. Of that, I had made certain.

To his credit, Derrick didn't bat an eye at that little revelation. He shrugged. "Hey, what you want to do with your money is your business, but everyone can always use more right? Your kid's adorable by the way. She actually gave me the idea."

I raised a perfectly penciled eyebrow. "You going into the diaper business?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm going into the customs business. With a little help from you, and a slightly larger Judy."

I blinked, then turned to him, putting on an easy smile. "What did you have in mind?"

He grinned, smelling money in the air. "Judy Hopps, squeaky clean cop extraordinaire... Or at least that's what the media thinks. You ask your daughter's lovely godmother to look past a few forms, and I can start moving all kinds of things into the city." He leaned down to me. " _Very_ profitable things."

I nodded. "Look me in the eye. Business arrangements are best conducted face to face."

Having nowhere to sit but the floor, he hunkered down on the tile he eyed me standing on the counter. I smiled.

He gave me a toothy grin. "Now we're talking. Okay toots, let's talk sha- AAAAGH!"

He screamed in agony as I leapt onto his face, sinking my teeth into his eye and injecting my entire store of venom.

He fell to the floor and I bounced back up to the sink, looking down on his pathetic, whimpering form as he curled up, nursing his wound.

"Let's get something straight..." I began, turning back to my makeup. "I chose Judy Hopps to be my precious little angel's godmother because she is a good person."

I double checked my concealer while blood and tears pooled beneath him. "Judy is tough, she's even willing to bend the rules to get the job done, but she is _not_ like us."

"Someday, you, and Daddy, and I are going to end up either dead or in the clink. It's just the way the business works. And when that happens, I want my precious angel to be raised by a good, law abiding citizen. If she was as stupid and greedy as you clowns, Judy Hopps would be worthless to me."

His breathing was starting to get heavy, but he was big, so he would live through the venom, probably.

I walked down the ladder off the sink, going for the bathroom door. "If you ever try to corrupt her, if you so much as cough near her, _ever_ again, you will wish that I had killed you."

That said, I went into the hall, slamming the door behind me. "Oh Daddy!" I called out, "I may have made an itsy, bitsy mess in the bathroom..."

 _Bogo_

The elephant took a deep shot of her drink right up through her trunk. I knew she was three times my weight, but I still felt a bit intimidated when she could drink a gallon of hard liquor before I'd finished my first beer.

Francine smiled at me. "See chief, isn't this nice? You should come out here more often."

I sighed, eyeing the colorful, dancing crowd around me and not so much hearing as feeling the too loud music pounding in my eardrums. I sighed, "Francine, it's too soon."

She groaned. "Chief, your ex-husband left you a _year_ ago. How long are you going to keep up the 'brooding celibacy' thing?"

I rubbed at my temples. "Francine, I'm 42 years old. I have a stack of papers I need to get done before 8:00 AM tomorrow and the strobe lights are giving me a headache. If this was supposed to be fun, I'm not seeing it."

She snorted. "Oh we haven't gotten to the fun part yet. Take a look at the polar bear with the eye patch." She gestured through the crowd with her trunk.

I groaned. "Damn it Francine, I know you have no standards, but I prefer my paramours to be cape buffalo with depth perception."

She chuckled. "You wound me chief, but seriously, take a look at him."

I humored her, looking up. The polar bear did indeed have an eye patch. He was also missing a digit. He was sitting in a booth with a briefcase in front of him... It was handcuffed to his paw.

I narrowed my eyes. This night had taken quite the turn. "I thought you said we were going out for some fun?"

The elephant nodded, looking insufferably smug. "Yes chief, _your_ kind of fun. You needed to get away from your desk, and Officer Hopps spotted this guy making a handoff earlier."

I raised an eyebrow. "What was officer Hopps doing at a gay club?"

She shrugged. "I think she was doing some trans pride thing with Nick? But don't worry, I'll convert her eventually. Anyway, she saw this guy and would have brought him in, but... Well, she'd never admit she couldn't take him, but she did concede that the fight would be messy."

I snorted I'd underestimated Hopps in the past, but the image of a three pound bunny trying to wrestle a polar bear was laughable... Then again she had taken a jaguar at one point.

I shook my head. "So that's why you asked me to bring my belt..." I turned to the officer, putting on my most serious expression. "You know, officially, I have to condemn you for unorthodox handling of an investigation."

She raised an eyebrow. "And unofficially?"

"Just cover the rear exit."

#

I sidled up easily to the polar bear, who took a moment to spot me with his good eye. He grinned. "Sorry pal, I'm taken. But if you feel like buying me a drink, I won't say no."

I flashed my badge. "Chief Bogo, ZPD. Would you mind opening up that briefcase for me?"

Polar Bears can't have the color drain from their faces, but he sure tried. "C'mon man, I'm just here meeting my BF for a drink, what's with this racial profiling bu... stuff." He corrected.

I ignored the slur and narrowed my eyes. "You're meeting your boyfriend for a drink with a suitcase chained your paw?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, he's right there!" He pointed.

For the record, he just bolted. I did not fall for that. Never happened.

He was halfway to the door when Francine was on him. Unfortunately the bastard was slippery. Literally, he slid right between my officer's legs and went bolting behind her. The elephant trumpeted as she ran after him. "Police Freeze!"

I was neck and neck with Francine, but it wasn't looking good. The suspect had a good ten yards on us and we couldn't pull any weapons in the still crowded (albeit thinning) bar.

He was feet from the exit. _Damn it no! I'm so-_

The bouncer, a very muscled buffalo, clotheslined him. He flopped to the ground, winded by his own momentum. Moments later we were on him, handcuffs at the ready. "You are under arrest on suspicion of trafficking illegal substances."

Francine started reading him his rights while I checked on the bouncer. "You okay?"

He nodded. He was a tough bull who clearly spent some time at the gym. He didn't neglect the rest of his appearance, his horns glinted with polish, but he didn't appear as overly done up as some men I'd seen.

"Yeah... Sorry if I wasn't supposed to do that." He said, uncertain, "I'm mostly used to wrangling angry drunks."

I smirked. "Generally you'd want to avoid getting in front of fleeing suspects, but we're happy for the help of good Samaritans."

He smiled. It was a warm smile. "Cool. I'm Greg by the way, Officer...?"

"Chief actually, Chief Bogo." I smiled back.

His eyes went wide. "Wait, you're the chief of police? But you're so-"

"Can I _please_ go to jail now!" Our suspect whined.

Francine shushed him. "Let the man work..."


End file.
